Transluminal catheter deployment of an implantable medical device can provide an effective alternative to delivery of the implantable medical device to a treatment site within a patient using traditional surgical techniques. For example, a cardiac valve can be replaced with a prosthetic heart valve without requiring open-heart surgery by connecting the prosthetic heart valve to a collapsible and expandable support frame that can be loaded onto a delivery catheter. The prosthetic heart valve can then be advanced into a patient through the vasculature via the delivery catheter. In general, the prosthetic heart valve is loaded onto an expandable balloon of a delivery catheter by crimping or compressing a support frame of the valve onto the expandable balloon. The catheter and valve are then advanced, e.g., through an opening in the femoral artery and through the descending aorta to the heart where the valve is then deployed, e.g., in the aortic valve annulus. The prosthetic heart valve can be deployed by inflating the expandable balloon, thereby expanding the support frame of the valve until the valve engages tissue surrounding the treatment site. Alternatively, the support frame of the valve can be self-expanding. In this case, the support frame can be crimped down to a desired size without the use of an expandable balloon, and the frame can be held in a compressed arrangement within an outer delivery sheath. Retracting the sheath from the support frame enables the frame to self-expand to a larger diameter and engage tissue at the treatment site.
Many devices, such as the valves described above, are flexible and capable of withstanding expanding and compressing forces exerted by the delivery catheter, such as by a balloon expanding the valve or a sheath compressing the valve. However, some implantable devices include rigid bodies that may not be flexible enough to withstand the typical expanding and compressing forces exerted by a delivery catheter. For example, a drug or treatment material may be compressed into a rigid, pill-like form that would crack if acted upon by compressive forces. Thus, a delivery device and method for delivering such rigid body implants transluminally without breaking the rigid body would be beneficial.